Provoked (9 page)

David suppressed a smile. It did not escape him that Chalmers’s favourite occupations all kept him away from his shrewish wife.

“You prefer the intellectual life,” Balfour observed.

“Infinitely,” Chalmers agreed. “And you, my lord? Will you ever exchange the pleasures of London for those of the country?”

“Actually, I am considering just that.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I’ve been looking for a property for some time. Kilbeigh will go to my older brother, of course.”

“What kind of property do you seek?” David asked.

Balfour turned his head to meet David’s curious gaze. “Something in the country. To begin with I was determined it should be small.” He gave a lazy smile. “A mere cottage, if you can believe it, Mr. Lauriston.”

David raised a brow. “I doubt my idea of a cottage is the same as yours, my lord.”

Balfour’s dark eyes twinkled and the corner of his mouth hitched a little.

“Perhaps not,” he conceded. “I was originally thinking of a hunting lodge. Somewhere I could put up a few guests with decent fishing.”

“Hardly a cottage,” David observed, smiling to take the sting out of the comment.

“True. In any event, as it happens, I’ve taken a liking for a property in Perthshire that’s rather larger than a lodge and most impractical. It’s far too big for me and was left in a muddle by the last owner, whose executors have been trying to get rid of it for more than a twelvemonth.”

Chalmers chuckled. “It sounds like a bad bargain, my lord. Stay away, that’s my advice.”

“What do you like about it?” David asked.

The other corner of Balfour’s mouth lifted. He had beautifully carved lips for a man, the upper bow very precisely symmetrical, the philtrum above a deep, sensual groove. When he smiled, as he was doing now, that appealing little pleat of flesh flattened and stretched, and an unexpected dimple appeared in his left cheek. David blinked and looked down at the tablecloth.

“The views are exquisite,” Balfour said. “Very romantic.”

Chalmers laughed outright then. “Romantic views? Oh beware! Beware! Many a bad bargain has been made over a romantic view. Marriages have crumbled and fortunes been lost. Take my word for it. Stay away.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Balfour replied with a chuckle. “I’ll try to rein in my poetic soul.”

“You do that,” Chalmers said. “In the meantime, have another whisky. There’s enough poetry in this bottle for any man’s soul.”

It was only then, as Chalmers refilled their glasses, that David realised he’d drunk the last dram without even noticing.

“It’s a good whisky,” Balfour agreed, holding his glass up to the candlelight.

“You like whisky?” Chalmers asked.

“Yes, though I prefer French brandy generally,” he replied, adding with a grin, “smuggled, of course.”

“They don’t look dissimilar in the glass. Until you taste them,” Chalmers observed.

“And yet they have such different ingredients,” Balfour said.

“The colour doesn’t come from the ingredients,” David interjected quietly. “It comes from the wood barrels the spirit’s stored in.”

“Goodness me, Mr. Lauriston,” Balfour drawled. “What a thing to know! You are not just a pretty face, are you?”

David’s cheeks heated again. Christ, he wished he could control his blushes.

“Oh, our Mr. Lauriston is bright, all right,” Chalmers said, chuckling. “I’m fortunate enough to get more briefs than I can manage alone, so I employ junior advocates to work with me. But they have to be the very best, you see. Not the ten-a-penny ones with dull minds and aristocratic families. I don’t need more influence with the judges—I’ve got that in spades already. No, I want a man with
intellect
. Like this young man.”

Balfour listened to Chalmers’s soliloquy with fascination. “You rate him highly.”

“I do indeed,” Chalmers replied jovially. The whisky was making him fulsome in his praise. He reached for the bottle to pour himself another.

Balfour transferred his attention to David, his gaze strangely assessing. He did nothing to veil his interest, and it made his scrutiny feel almost painfully intimate, invasive even. It put David’s back up, and before he knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, the chair scraping against the floor with a shriek. Chalmers looked up, surprised. Balfour merely raised his eyebrows.

“I should be going,” David finally got out, astonished by how ordinary his voice sounded. “Before all these compliments turn my head.”

Chalmers laughed. “You should enjoy them while you can, lad,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t stay for a last dram?”

“No, I should be on my way. Tomorrow is going to be demanding.”

“You’re right, of course.” Chalmers sighed. “And we have an early start.” He rang the bell. Moments later, the footman entered and Chalmers dispatched him for David’s greatcoat and hat.

“Leave your papers. I’ll bring them in with me tomorrow,” Chalmers said. “And don’t think of reading anything more tonight. I know exactly what I’m going to be saying.”

David nodded. He felt Balfour’s gaze on him, heavy and warm, but didn’t look at him as he donned his coat. And so he was unaware, until he turned around, that Balfour was also readying himself to leave.

“You are welcome to stay, my lord,” Chalmers told Balfour as the footman left the room. “Mr. Lauriston wishes to leave because he has important work to do tomorrow, but I fancy you do not.”

If there was a fragment of sarcasm in there, Balfour didn’t appear to notice. “Forgive me for taking my leave so early, but I’m terribly tired,” he replied. “It was a long journey from Argyll, and I’ve only just arrived. Please pass my apologies on to your lady.”

Mrs. Chalmers would be annoyed. She’d have the girls all arranged in the drawing room, ready to show off their accomplishments, Elizabeth likely at the pianoforte. But though Chalmers must know this, he merely inclined his head. “I hope you will call on us again, my lord.”

“I will do so gladly,” Balfour replied, accepting his coat and sliding his arms into the sleeves. “And thank you for a most pleasant evening.”

He turned to David. “Shall we walk together, Lauriston?”

Chapter Seven

Outside, it was dark and foggy. The few oil lamps attached to the houses on the street sent out feeble rings of light, but not enough to illuminate the road ahead. Balfour loomed large at David’s side, his face shadowed by the brim of his high-crowned hat.

His presence unsettled David. He wished the man had had the courtesy to stay at Chalmers’s house a little longer, but Balfour had seemed to welcome the opportunity to escape early.

“Where do you live, Lauriston?”

“In the Old Town,” David replied shortly.

“How far is that on foot?”

“Not far. A walk of twenty minutes, perhaps. And you?”

“My townhouse is on Queen Street, so you will have my company at least part of the way home.”

David noted the wealthy address without comment and set off, Balfour falling into step beside him.

“I didn’t expect to see someone I knew tonight,” Balfour said after a while. It was his first acknowledgement that he remembered David.

David glanced at him. The detail of Balfour’s face was difficult to make out in the darkness, but the strong, certain lines of his profile were oddly familiar. “Nor did I,” he said quietly.

Balfour turned to look at him and laughed, his wide, white grin flashing in the shadows. “Was it a shock?”

David couldn’t help but smile back. There was something infectious about Balfour’s grin. “A bit of one,” he admitted, thawing a little.

“Particularly when you’re trying to court the oldest daughter of the house, I imagine.”

David stumbled. “I beg your pardon?”

“The daughter—Elizabeth, was it? She’s sweet on you. And Chalmers approves, though his lady is aiming higher, I gather.” He clapped David on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll have no competition from me, whatever your future mother-in-law might hope. I have my eye on another lady.”

David stopped in his tracks, his brows drawing together. “I am not courting Miss Chalmers.”

Balfour halted beside him, seeming surprised at David’s emphatic tone. “All right,” he said. “Have it your way. Though if you have any sense, that’s what you’ll do. It’d be an advantageous match for a man of your station.” He grinned again, allowing his gaze to travel over David in a slow, head-to-toe examination. “And there’d be compensations for the lady.”

David pressed his lips together as they recommenced walking, annoyed beyond all reason. Not even sure why he was annoyed.

“What do you mean, a man of my station?”

Balfour turned his head to look at him, and David had the disconcerting feeling that Balfour saw everything David was thinking, while Balfour remained entirely opaque to him, hidden in the shadows.

“Well, you don’t come from money, do you?” Balfour said.

“No,” David admitted. “I don’t.”

“I’m guessing that you can’t afford to fail at your profession. You don’t have wealth to fall back on. And you probably don’t have connections with influence. In all likelihood, you’ve had to fight to get to where you are now, and even now, you’re standing on the bottom rung of the ladder. Am I right?”

David swallowed, not liking the feeling of being so sharply observed. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted stiffly.

Balfour smiled. “You look and sound the part, Lauriston, and you’re plainly intelligent. But there are a few clues here and there—in your speech, your dress, your gestures. Most especially those, actually.” He paused. “Marriage to a woman like Elizabeth Chalmers would help you greatly. And it’s well within your reach.”

Stung by Balfour’s thorough assessment, David blurted, “I would never consider it.”

Balfour shrugged. “Well, you should.”

“But I could not love her.”

Balfour regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you a romantic, I wonder,” he said. “Or an idealist?” He canted his head to one side, as though debating the point, then seemed to reach a decision. “Both, possibly.”

“I’m neither. But I imagine most women expect love when they marry. And that is something that I—” He broke off for a moment, then determinedly resumed. “That I, with my unnatural defect, am unable to give.”

Balfour just stared at him. David held himself still under the astonished examination, determined not to squirm, even though he felt like an insect on a pin.

“Yes, definitely an idealist,” Balfour murmured. “Only an idealist could believe most women expect love when they marry. They’re very practical creatures, you know. And as for your talk about unnatural defects, must you speak like some fire-and-brimstone preacher? I suppose you were brought up to believe it’s the worst sin in Christendom?”

He sounded so scathing that heat invaded David’s face. “Yes, I was brought up to believe it’s a sin. Not to mention a crime. It’s not something I’m proud of. Are you?”

Balfour laughed. “Proud of it? I don’t even think about it in those terms. I don’t think the fact I want to stick my cock in the occasional arse is any business of God, the King or anyone else. I’m not harming anyone when I bugger a pretty boy—assuming the pretty boy is of age and willing. And I’m not going to flagellate myself with regret over something that brings me a great deal of pleasure. Does that answer your question?”

“Perfectly.” Face burning, David turned on his heel and began to walk away, mortification crawling over his skin. The man was an unapologetic reprobate and plainly he thought David was a stiff-necked bore.

“Hold up there!” Balfour called after him, laughter still in his deep voice. “Are you offended, Lauriston?”

“Not a bit,” David said tersely.

“Yes, you are. You think I’m an ungodly villain, when the truth is I’m a slave to reason.”

“A slave to reason?” David scoffed.

“Quite so. I’ve never been able to accept that things are a certain way just because someone tells me they are. I don’t believe that fucking a man is a mortal sin. It harms no one, and it brings a great deal of pleasure to me.”

“That must be convenient.”

Balfour laughed again, as though pleased by David’s dry comment. “It is. But it’s also true, I think. I am the sovereign of this.” He gestured to his own body. “And I will do with it what I will.”

“And what about this lady you have your eye on? What if you marry her?”

“What of it?”

“You will be giving yourself to her, and she will be giving herself to you. You won’t be sole sovereign of your body then.”

Balfour frowned and smiled at the same time, a strange combination of expressions that made him look puzzled and good humoured at once. “You’re serious.”

“Yes, I‘m serious,” David replied. “Even if you don’t believe what the Bible says, when you marry, you make promises. Marriage vows.”

“Are you quite sure you’re a lawyer, Lauriston? There is something touchingly naïve about you at times that is quite at odds with your profession.”

David flushed again. “I realise you think I’m ridiculous, but a man of honour would not laugh at me.”

“Are you calling me dishonourable?” Balfour’s voice was disbelieving, a dangerous edge creeping in.

David refused to back down. “Would you make promises to a woman in church, then break those promises? Is that not dishonourable?”

“It is the way of the world. Like as not any woman I marry won’t expect—or want—my fidelity.”

“It doesn’t matter what she expects or wants,” David said implacably. “A promise is a promise.”

Balfour gave a disbelieving laugh. “You
are
an idealist.”

David thought about that. “Perhaps,” he conceded at last. “And glad to be one if only an idealist keeps his promises.”

Balfour didn’t answer that, but he looked at David for a long moment before he turned his head forward again.

“Why did you represent those weavers?”

The unexpectedness of the question after the brief silence threw David. “Because they deserved to be properly defended.”

“Because they were right?”

“Because anyone in their position deserves to be represented by an advocate who will try his best for them.”

“Avoiding the question, Lauriston?”